"Mm," Honor said, frowning at the numbers. Yes, the Dorado was running; but where was she running to? Surely McLeod didn't think he could outrun a battlecruiser in that thing.
And then understanding struck her, and she smiled a bittersweet smile. Of course. McLeod couldn't get away; but what he could do was try to distract the Peep. Possibly even drag him far enough out of position that Fearless would be able to engage the two enemy ships one at a time.
The catch was that if he was able to become enough of an irritation that he actually did any good, that defiance might well cost him his life.
Which left Honor with only two options: to take advantage of his proffered sacrifice, or to instead try to distract the Peep herself into leaving the Dorado alone.
Fearless had finished her deceleration and was finally starting to close the distance back toward the convoy she'd abandoned. The raider behind her, she noted, was accelerating in her wake, continuing to herd her toward the battlecruiser while at the same time being careful not to get close enough that she would be tempted to turn and engage. It was still over an hour back to the convoy, according to DuMorne's plot. Plenty of time for the battlecruiser to deal with the Dorado.
For a moment she studied the numbers. Fearless's acceleration was hovering right at five hundred and four gees. That was far above the normal eighty percent power the RMN normally maintained, but it still left a safety margin of almost three percent against her inertial compensator. . .
"Chief Killian," she said quietly to the helmsman, "increase acceleration to maximum military power."
Venizelos turned to look at her, but remained silent. He'd probably run the numbers, and the logic, the same way she had.
"Aye, aye, Ma'am," Killian acknowledged, and the safety margin dropped to zero as Fearless went to a full five hundred and twenty gravities.
"And prepare a broadside, Commander Wallace," she continued. "We'll fire as soon as we're within range."
Because, after all, it was the wolf's job to distract the rampaging bear from the cub, not the other way around.
And with a little luck, the Peep would find out just how distracting HMS Fearless could be.
"We're in range of the Dorado, Commodore," Koln announced. "Crippler reports ready to fire."
"Tell them to make sure they actually hit the damn thing this time," Dominick said pointedly. "Fire when ready."
"Yes, Sir," Koln said, touching the signal key. Vanguard's lights dimmed yet again, and on Dominick's tac display Dorado's wedge vanished. "Good," he said, weighing his options. As long as he was here anyway, he could send a couple of boarding boats to go and loot the attempted runaway.
But if he did, that would leave Jansci floating around on its own behind him, with all that top-secret military equipment aboard. Would the Manties have orders to destroy the most sensitive cargo in case of imminent capture? The Harlequin's crew hadn't bothered with any such sabotage before they'd run; but then, Harlequin's cargo hadn't been as sensitive as what was supposed to be aboard the Jansci, either.
There was no point in taking chances. He opened his mouth to order the ship around—
"Sir!" Koln said suddenly. "We've got another ship on scope. Small one—dispatch boat class, about forty thousand tons."
"Where?" Dominick demanded, scanning his displays.
"Behind the Dorado," Koln said. "It must have been hidden by her wedge. Probably moored to the topside hull; they had their belly to us when their nodes went down that first time. Really hauling gees, too."
"Yes," Dominick murmured. The dispatch boat was indeed eating up space, and at a rate that was impressive even for that class of high-speed ship. That implied it was something special.
He smiled, a sudden wolfish grin. "Well, well," he said. "The Manties are being cute, Lieutenant."
"Sir?" Koln asked.
Dominick gestured at his displays. "There's no reason for the average merchie to carry a boat like that." He cocked an eyebrow. "Which implies she's not an average merchie."
For a second Koln just looked puzzled. Then his face cleared. "The Jansci," he said, nodding.
"Exactly," Dominick agreed. "Somewhere along the line, she and the Dorado must have exchanged ID transponders."
And they might not even have tumbled to the deception if the crew hadn't panicked and jumped ship. Typical Manties.
His smile vanished. Unless the hurry they were in wasn't simply panic . . .
"Full scan of the Dorado," he snapped. "Look for odd energy or electronic emissions."
"Nothing showing, Sir," Koln said, sounding puzzled. "Except that the nodes are acting like they're on standby. That's impossible, of course—that last Crippler blast caught them dead center, and we saw the wedge collapse."
Dominick gnawed at his lower lip. Koln was right—he'd watched the wedge die himself.
So then what the hell was happening over there? Some new technological deviltry the Manties had come up with? A feedback loop in the nodes, maybe; something that would blow up the impellers and fusion plant after the crew had had time to get away?
He couldn't even begin to guess the details. But the details didn't matter anyway. He'd been right the first time: those Manties were the keepers of a ship full of secrets, and they were going to scuttle that ship.
Or at least, they were going to try.
"Man the boarding boats—double-time," Dominick ordered. "Helm, get us in as close as you can—I want the crews aboard as quickly as possible."
He glared at his displays. Because he would be damned if he would let the damn Royalists take his prize—his prize—away from him.
They were nearly finished when the bone-cracking sound of the collapsing wedge once again echoed through the Dorado. "There it goes," Pampas called from beneath the sensor monitor panel. "Hope the breakers can handle all this stress."
"We'll send a nasty letter to the manufacturer if they can't," Cardones said, looking over his own handiwork. Just wrap the receiver pack around the control cables, Sandler had said, and the remote control would be ready to rock. He just hoped he'd wrapped it properly. "How's it going in there?"
"Two minutes," Pampas said. "Maybe less."
The bridge door slid open, and Cardones turned as McLeod stepped in. "Forward sensor interlocks are disabled," he announced. "And I checked the lifeboat on my way back. Everything's ready."
"Good," Cardones said. "Georgio says two more minutes and we'll be off."
"I hope so," McLeod said sourly, stepping over to the helm and peering at the displays. "The Peep's still coming."
Cardones nodded, craning his neck to look at the impeller status display. "Looks like the breakers just closed again," he said. "Georgio?"
"Finished," Pampas said. "Let me make sure the wires are sealed and I'll be right with you."
"What's he doing down there?" McLeod asked, the worry in his voice tinged with suspicion.
Cardones took a deep breath. "He's just taken the compensators off line."
McLeod's mouth fell open a centimeter. "On a ship with a functional wedge? Are you insane? You fire up the impellers—"
His face suddenly changed. "That's why you had me wreck the interlocks," he breathed. "No compensators, no limit protection on the wedge—you fire it up now, and anyone aboard will be smeared across the bulkheads like jelly."
"Yes, I know," Cardones said evenly, looking back at the display. The Peep battlecruiser was on the move now, sweeping in with sudden new urgency toward the Dorado. Preparing, no doubt, to launch its boarding boats . . .
"Done," Pampas grunted.
"Good." Carefully, Cardones picked up the attaché case that contained Sandler's remote control system. "Let's go."
"They've dropped another boat," Koln announced. "Standard lifeboat this time."
"Never mind the lifeboat," Dominick growled. The boarding boats were in space now, driving hard toward the drifting Dorado, and there was no indication that whatever the Royalists had done to the nodes was gaining any groun
d. They should have plenty of time to get aboard and shut the system down before it blew.
But now, with the safety of his precious cargo assured, he was taking another look at the people who had tried to deprive him of it.
They were still fleeing, out there in their souped-up dispatch boat. Running as if their lives depended on it.
Which was, Dominick decided, as forlorn a hope as he'd ever heard of. Certainly Vanguard couldn't catch a boat that fast; but then, he hardly had to catch them to make his displeasure known. "Lock a graser on that dispatch boat," he ordered, shifting his eyes to the lifeboat. The merchantman's lower-ranking crewmen, most likely, left to fend for themselves when their superiors ran out in the faster boat.
Well, they would have the last laugh. They would get to see their former oppressors die.
"Graser ready, Commodore."
"Key it to me," Dominick ordered. This one he would do himself. A shame he couldn't use a missile, he thought regretfully. A missile would be even more satisfying, because that way the Manties would have a few seconds to see their doom bearing down on them. With a graser, unfortunately, they would be dead before they even knew about it.
But missiles cost money, and personal vengeance might as well be economical.
On his board, the fire-control command key winked on. Savoring the moment, he reached out a hand to push it.
Ten thousand kilometers away, seated behind Pampas and McLeod in the lifeboat, Cardones gave the remote-control displays one final check. The heading was keyed, the course maneuver settings locked in. All was ready.
Mentally crossing his fingers, he pressed the button.
* * *
"Commodore!"
Koln's startled cry cut across the bridge, jerking Dominick's finger away from the firing key before he could push it and jerking his eyes toward the displays.
The Dorado was moving.
Not just a reflexive twitch or jerk, either. The merchantman was swinging around, scattering away the boarding boats swarming toward it, bringing itself nose-on to the Vanguard.
And with its wedge blazing away at full power, it leaped forward.
But not at the pathetic acceleration of a normal merchantman. Not a lumbering, insignificant two hundred gees. Instead, the Dorado was burning through space at an utterly impossible two thousand gravities, fully four times Vanguard's own top rate.
The very shock of it froze Dominick in his chair for that first horrifying fraction of a second. It was insane—the crew would have had to cut the safety interlocks, disable the inertial compensator, and crank the nodes up to a level they couldn't possibly maintain for more than a minute or two before vaporizing under the stress.
Impeller nodes that shouldn't have been operating in the first place!
"Evasive!" he snapped. "Ninety-degree starboard yaw—full power. Port broadside: fire at will."
The helmsman was on it in an instant, swinging the Vanguard hard over and kicking her into motion. But it was too late. The Dorado was turning right along with it, locked on and still coming.
"Shoot it!" Dominick shouted again, a note of desperation in his voice. He swung his chair around to snarl at Charles—
The snarl died in his throat. The seat beside the tac station was empty.
Charles was gone.
He swung around again, eyes darting to every corner of the bridge, knowing even as he did so that it was a pitiful way to waste his last few seconds of life. Charles had left the bridge and probably the ship, leaving nothing behind but empty promises and the acid taste of betrayal.
Belatedly, the port lasers and grasers opened fire. But with Fearless looming in the distance, all of Vanguard's fire control had been locked into the long-range sensors, and there was no time to recalibrate for short-range fire. One graser beam did manage to score a direct hit, going straight down the Dorado's throat and burning clear through its centerline, and for a brief moment Dominick dared to hope.
But there was nothing on that path of destruction but crew quarters, control systems, and cargo holds. Nothing that could disable those straining impeller nodes or otherwise halt the terrible Juggernaut bearing down on them.
And then there was no more time for firing. No more time for anything . . . except to appreciate a last bitter flicker of irony.
As he had those last few seconds to see his doom bearing down on him.
The Dorado reached the Peep battlecruiser . . . and with just under five hundred kilometers still separating them, their two impeller wedges intersected.
The nodes went first, in both ships, the sudden influx of gravitational energy shattering them into explosions of shrapnel and superheated gas that ripped through the impeller rooms, crushing decks and bulkheads and killing everyone in their path. Shock waves and electromagnetic pulses swept ahead of the shrapnel, crushing and killing and demolishing electronics as they passed. Vanguard writhed in agony; the Dorado, far weaker and more vulnerable than a warship, was already twitching her last death throes.
And then, the expanding spheres of destruction reached the fusion mag bottles.
The Dorado's fusion generator had already died, hammered into useless rubble along with everything else inside the merchantman's hull. But the Vanguard's twin plants, like the beating hearts of the still struggling ship, had somehow managed to survive.
They died now; and for a brief, eye-wrenching second there was a new star in the Walther System's night sky.
And then the star faded, and there was nothing left but a quietly expanding sphere of plasma and debris.
Aboard the recently renamed light cruiser Forerunner, Captain Vaccares stared at his displays in disbelief. One minute the Vanguard had stood alone among a group of disabled merchantmen, waiting like a lion for its prey to be driven to it.
And now, in the blink of an eye, it was gone.
And that same prey, the HMS Fearless, was hailing him.
"Andermani Light Cruiser Alant," a woman's voice came from the bridge speaker, "or whatever you're calling yourself now, this is Captain Harrington aboard Her Majesty's Ship Fearless. You are ordered to strike your wedge and surrender your ship."
"Fearless has turned around again, Captain," the helmsman announced. "She's started accelerating toward us."
"Turn ship," Vaccares ordered. Between the two of them, he and Commodore Dominick could easily have taken a Manticoran heavy cruiser. But with Vanguard gone, he would have had to be insane to think of facing Fearless alone. "Give me full acceleration toward the hyper limit."
The images on the displays canted around as the Forerunner swung a hundred eighty degrees over. Vaccares double-checked the numbers and nodded to himself. The hyper limit was only about an hour away, he was still outside Fearless's missile envelope, and he was faster than she was.
They were going to make it home. Not covered with glory, as Commodore Dominick had planned, or loaded with treasure and the key to Manticore's conquest, as Charles had promised. No, they would be returning to Haven like a dog with its tail between its legs. But at least they would be returning.
And then, even as he came to that conclusion, the forward display flashed a sudden warning. "Hyper footprint!" the tac officer called. "Directly ahead of us."
"Identify," Vaccares ordered. Another Manty? Had the convoy had a second escort lurking out at the edge of the system?
But it wasn't a Manty.
It was far worse.
"Unidentified raider, this is His Imperial Majesty's battlecruiser Neue Bayern," a harsh, German-accented voice announced coldly. "You have no means of escape. Surrender, or be destroyed."
Frantically, Vaccares looked at the tac display. But Neue Bayern was right. Between the battlecruiser in front of him and the Fearless behind him, there was no vector he could take that wouldn't force him into engagement with one or both of the larger ships for at least ten minutes.
He could fight, of course. He and his crew could die for the glory of Haven, or at least to save it from the consequences of get
ting caught with a seized Andermani ship.
But too many people had already died in this fiasco. Most of them were Manties, but they were dead just the same.
He could see no reason to voluntarily add to their number.
"Strike the wedge," he ordered the helmsman quietly. "And then signal the Neue Bayern and Fearless.
"Tell them we surrender."
Admiral of the Red Sonja Hemphill looked up from the report and steadied her gaze onto the face of the young man standing stiffly at parade rest in front of her desk. "And what, Lieutenant," she said frostily, "am I supposed to do with you?"
Lieutenant Cardones's cheek might have twitched, but there was no other reaction Hemphill could see. "Ma'am?" he asked evenly.
"You disobeyed a direct order from a superior," Hemphill said, tapping a fingertip on the memo pad in front of her. "Captain Sandler's report makes it clear she told you not to raise the Dorado's wedge. Yet you did so anyway. Are you aware that that's a court-martial offense?"
"Yes, Ma'am," Cardones said. "And I make no excuse."
Hemphill felt her face settle into a familiar set of lines. "Aside from the fact that it saved every man and woman aboard the Fearless?" she suggested.
This time there was definitely a twitch. "Yes, Ma'am," Cardones said. "And the crews of the merchantmen, too."
"And do you intend to make a habit of placing individual lives over the value of official Naval or governmental policy?" Hemphill continued. "More to the point for a line officer, do you intend to place the value of these lives over the lawful execution of your orders?"
The young man's face had settled into lines of its own. "No, Ma'am," he said.
"That's good, Lieutenant," Hemphill said, letting her voice chill a few degrees. "Because if you were—if I even thought you were—you would be out of the service so fast it would take you three weeks just to catch up with your butt. Do I make myself clear?"
"Yes, Ma'am."
"Good," Hemphill said softly. "Then allow me make myself even clearer. You acted out of loyalty to Captain Harrington and the Fearless. I appreciate that. But loyalty must always be balanced with the larger perspective. Here we had a chance—a small one, admittedly, but still a chance—to feed Haven a line of disinformation that could have tied up its time and resources for years to come."